OB's economy a house of cards

What is the cause for the current recession?

That is the question that has become worth 6.2% of America's GDP.

Democrats are responsible for causing this crisis:

Former President Bill Clinton placed significant pressure on Fannie Mae to increase lending to "low and moderate income people," as a September 30, 1999 New York Times article reported. Those who bash George W. Bush as having deregulated the financial sector should realize that Clinton repealed part of the Glass-Staegall Act, which had been in place since 1933. Former President Jimmy Carter, who presided over the highest interest and unemployment rates since the Great Depression, signed the Community Reinvestment Act in 1977. The Act 'encouraged' subprime lending, especially lending into what many proponents of the Act called "communities of color" with less regard for the potential loan recipients' financial standing.

Both Democrats and Republicans are responsible for exacerbating and prolonging the crisis, but there is no doubt amongst the knowledgeable and honest (both parts required) as to where the root cause lies. [snip]

The good news is that there is a very easy solution to this problem.

Government: stop the apocalyptic rhetoric and immediately cut taxes.

The bad news is it's showing no interest in doing so.

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THE PROBLEM WITH NATIONALIZATION

The chorus for nationalizing America's struggling banks is growing louder.

In principle, temporary nationalization in some instances could be the least-cost approach. The example of the Swedish banking crisis of the early 1990s is most often cited by nationalization advocates.

The bad assets, mostly real estate, were sold relatively quickly. The needed workouts brought cries that borrowers were being squeezed. In short, the resolution was handled professionally rather than politically.

The contrast with the current U.S. crisis could not be sharper:

• From the beginning, the handling of the U.S. crisis has been politicized.
• The partisanship is as toxic as the bad assets on bank balance sheets.
• Both parties are coming up with schemes to impede the process of foreclosing on homeowners who can't afford their homes, which would get those homes into the hands of new owners who can afford them.

Does anyone believe that a government bad bank will squeeze homeowners?

To ask the question is to answer it.

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Americans Oppose Nationalization - Even of At-Risk Banks

Only 29% of Americans believe the federal government should nationalize some banks that are at risk of going out of business, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Fifty-one percent (51%) oppose nationalization even of troubled mega-banks like Citigroup which is now proposing the government take a 40-percent share of its business. Twenty percent (20%) are not sure which is the better course to follow.

Investors are slightly more adamant. Fifty-five percent (55%) oppose nationalization even of at-risk banks, while 28% favor the idea.

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mny bbro sclm - Big government makes us feed his dog

The Bush Pullout

[HT:JB]
Iraq War: President Obama traveled to Camp Lejeune, N.C., on Friday to announce that the U.S. would stay in Iraq at least until 2012 and keep 50,000 troops there even after combat ends. Sound familiar?(Snip)

Under the status of forces agreement between the U.S. and Iraq, negotiated and signed last year by the Bush administration, all forces must be out of Iraq by the end of 2011.(Snip) it was Bush's plan — not Obama's.

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One in ten freed Guantánamo detainees goes back to terrorism, says Pentagon

More than one in ten of the Guantánamo detainees sent back to their countries of origin have subsequently become involved in terrorist activities, according to the Pentagon. Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon spokesman, said that an estimated 62 former inmates had been linked to terrorism again. “That's an 11 per cent recidivist rate,” he told The Times.

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Why The CIA Has To Spy On Britain

On the night of the Mumbai attacks I spoke to an old security source of mine, who has friends in SIS, MI5 and defence intelligence. There was only one thought on the minds of our security chiefs that night: ‘Are they British?’ (snip)

It was a fair assumption since, where international terrorism is concerned, Britain is no longer part of the solution; we are part of the problem...

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British Muslims 'providing Taliban with electronic devices for roadside bombs'

Helmand - British Muslims are providing the Taliban with electronic devices to make roadside bombs for use in attacks against British forces serving in southern Afghanistan...

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[Much is (rightly) made of our need to prevent the establishment of 'safe havens' for terrorists - yet what of those being established 'at home'?

And on this side of the pond? ... > ]
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Obama orders terror suspect to DOJ

In a move signaling a new legal strategy in the war on terror, President Barack Obama has ordered the military to transfer alleged al- Qaida sleeper agent Ali al-Marri from a Navy brig to the Department of Justice, following his indictment on charges of material support for terrorism.

The move heralds a major change in policy. Transferring al-Marri from military detention into the U.S. justice system will permit him to be tried under standard rules of evidence, and it will grant him minimum legal rights that were previously denied him.

The decision will win plaudits from human rights groups and other opponents of President Bush’s assertion that alleged enemy combatants could be detained indefinitely by the military, even if they are captured on U.S. soil.

But in moving al-Marri’s case to the federal courts, the Obama administration gives up some control over his fate. For instance, a federal judge with jurisdiction over the case technically would have the power to release al-Marri on bail...

[And how well did the 'law enforcement' approach work in preventing 9/11? Any of the other terror attacks that led up to it? (and zero since)

A: It didn't, and won't. Again: the deterrence mechanism, baring sheer luck (right place/right time) is retribution - after the fact - serving to dissuade others from acting likewise. That does not work with suicide bombers.

Such enemies cannot be deterred, they must be interdicted - relying on intelligence (FICA et al) or keeping those we catch (or have reason to suspect - being on a battlefield qualifies) lock up until the network they're a part of has been dismantled.

It's called war. Our enemies are playing to win, and this lunacy aids them.]

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image toon - bdd gwot - Terrorist has right to any attorney

Belgian police 'thwart imminent al-Qaeda attack'

Brussels - Belgian police say they have thwarted an imminent al-Qaeda suicide bomb attack as Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other European Union leaders arrived for a summit in Brussels. The arrival of EU leaders and intelligence that a terror attack was on the way triggered a massive police operation, involving 242 officers (Snip) Police have arrested 14 suspects, three of whom, including the suspected suicide bomber, had just returned from Afghanistan, where it is thought they had received orders from al-Qaeda commanders.

[GWOT]

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Getting a read on the Qur'an

I will not rehearse here, since space forbids, the arguments on how ludicrous is the display of Gordon Brown's Labour government in banning Geert Wilders from entering Britain.

What needs noting, however, is the irony that Brown, Wilders, the liberal elite in the West with their insistence on limiting free speech, and the Muslim thugs -- from the potentates who rule in the Arab-Muslim world to those who riot in the streets -- are all in agreement that Muslims generally are programmed by Islam and its sacred text, the Qur'an, to engage in violence.

The difference between Wilders and Muslim fanatics is in how they assess the rightness or wrongness of violence to be found in the Qur'an. Wilders sees the Qur'an as a Muslim version of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, and Muslim fanatics see the Qur'an as heavenly license to trample over those in disagreement with their views of the world...

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THE NEXT STAGE

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The other day I found myself wondering when the conversion rate would become an avalanche. To Islam, I mean. If you’ve been following recent developments in the Netherlands, you’ll know that Geert Wilders, a Dutch Member of Parliament, is to be put on trial for offending Muslims.

“Look at what you’re doing. You’re prosecuting a man who is under 24-hour protection from attack by violent Muslims. Yet he’s the criminal for expressing an opinion.”

the sardonic Brit Pat Condell pointed out.

Quite. But, while Europe has a high degree of tolerance for intolerant imams, it won’t tolerate anyone pointing out that intolerance. It is not necessary for Minheer Wilders to be either jailed or forced into exile to conclude that the Netherlands, like many of its neighbors, has already conceded the key point - that Muslims now have the exclusive right to set the parameters of public debate on Islam.

And, given that they don’t regard it as debatable at all, that means that the remorseless Islamization of Europe will continue and accelerate while the deWildered political establishment stands mute...

[Important demographic info., Highly Recommended > ]

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image toon - bdd islm dhimmitude othr - If an american had throw shoe at arab

Yemen to buy Russian weapons

Yemen has signed a deal to buy $1 billion worth of weapons from Russia, including fighter planes, helicopters and tanks, Yemeni state media reported. Agreements signed during a visit to Moscow by Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh included the purchase of MiG-29 planes, helicopters, T-80 and T-72 tanks, and armored vehicles, the state news agency Saba quoted unnamed sources as saying.

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Green-Subsidy Strings

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President Obama has long promised $150 billion in industry subsidies to develop alternative fuels, including Detroit Three production of alternate-fuel vehicles to meet federal fuel mandates.

White House Deputy Budget Director Robert Nabors confirmed yesterday that that the subsidy is contingent on revenues from the president’s cap and trade tax. No cap and trade, no $150 billion.

The White House was not forthcoming with details, but the move points a gun at Detroit’s head: Support our cap and trade scheme or no green subsidIes for you.

The tactic is more evidence of the political machinations that carbon regulation introduces into the body politic. To receive the promised medicine, Detroit must first drink Washington’s poison. [snip]

Cap and trade will

“devastate jobs in manufacturing states”

Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Mich.) has said. It is a bipartisan sentiment here as both of Michigan’s leftist senators, Levin and Stabenow, voted against Lieberman-Warner last year.

The nationalization of the U.S. auto industry is a two-way street: In return for Washington dollars, the industry will be expected to support Washington’s policies.

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Obama may throttle, not retool, family cars

President Barack Obama's recent action to "help America's automakers prepare for the future" just might jeopardize the last vestiges of excitement and interest that have attracted customers to dealer showrooms for generations.

(snip)They translate to a 43 mpg average for cars by 2016...2016 might seem well down the road to an environmentalist, to an auto designer, it's next month...family of five wants to take a vacation together, they'd better plan on taking two cars...

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Obama Declares War on Investors, Entrepreneurs, Businesses, And More

Larry Kudlow

Let me be very clear on the economics of President Obama’s State of the Union speech and his budget. He is declaring war on investors, entrepreneurs, small businesses, large corporations, and private-equity and venture-capital funds.

That is the meaning of his anti-growth tax-hike proposals, which make absolutely no sense at all — either for this recession or from the standpoint of expanding our economy’s long-run potential to grow.

Raising the marginal tax rate on successful earners, capital, dividends, and all the private funds is a function of Obama’s left-wing social vision, and a repudiation of his economic-recovery statements.

Ditto for his sweeping government-planning-and-spending program, which will wind up raising federal outlays as a share of GDP to at least 30 percent, if not more, over the next 10 years.

This is nearly double the government-spending low-point reached during the late 1990s by the Gingrich Congress and the Clinton administration. While not quite as high as spending levels in Western Europe, we regrettably will be gaining on this statist-planning approach.

Study after study over the past several decades has shown how countries that spend more produce less, while nations that tax less produce more.

Obama is doing it wrong on both counts.

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POLL: Democrats don't care what Americans want

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A new Harris Interactive poll, conducted February 13 – February 16, 2009, echoes the support Americans voiced before and after November’s elections: America favors offshore drilling for domestic oil and natural gas resources.

The poll found that 61% of Americans support drilling for oil and natural gas resources in the Outer Continental Shelf and the Gulf of Mexico. Only 26% of those polled opposed exploration and development of those resources.

Additionally, 57% would oppose regulations or laws that either delay or block domestic oil and natural gas production. Only 28% would support these regulations.

Specifically regarding Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s decision to delay the offshore drilling leasing process, 50% said they would “oppose delaying the offshore oil and gas drilling plan,” while only one-third of the respondents support Salazar’s decision.

Of those polled, 23% were Republicans, 37% were Democrats, and 33% were Independents, indicating that support for offshore drilling remains a tripartisan issue.

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[but only one party's in power...]

Interior Secretary Scraps Oil-Shale Leasing

The Obama administration Wednesday put the brakes on plans to develop oil shale on federal land in Western states, the latest in a series of moves to slow down or reverse Bush administration-era policies to promote oil and gas production.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar withdrew a lease offer made last month for research, development and demonstration projects involving oil shale. The projects could have built a case for commercial development of oil shale in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah.

Also this month, Mr. Salazar shelved a BLM plan developed during the Bush administration to lease wilderness areas of Utah for oil and gas drilling.

[Slow suicide. The green-mythology is killing this nation's ability to procure the energy it requires to keep running.]

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Then >

[click, sign, pass it on...]

"DRILL HERE, DRILL NOW"


Whitehouse: mailto:president@whitehouse.gov
Senate-Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
House-Pelosi: http://speaker.house.gov/contact/
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
YOUR Congressman: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...
and as always, pass it on...

GOVERNMENT'S ROLE IN THE EXPLODING COST OF HEALTH CARE

Ignored by the forces that want to impose a national system on the country, and relevant to the conversation, is government's role in the exploding cost of health care.

Decades of encroachments -- Medicare, Medicaid, the State Children's Health Insurance Program, etc. -- have resulted in the government owning 47 percent of the health care system.

With that much of the market Washington cannot deny its role in driving up costs. Medicare lost control of its purse from the start and has never recovered:

• Between 1966, its first year of operation, and 1980, costs doubled every four years.
• In all but a few rare instances, Medicare's annual costs have increased faster than private insurance costs; and the trouble is only just beginning.

The hospital insurance portion of Medicare is now paying out more in benefits than it receives in tax revenues:

• By next year, outlays for all parts of the program will exceed income.
• The Hospital Insurance Trust Fund will be exhausted by 2019.
• If nothing changes, Medicaid eventually will have $36 trillion in obligations that it won't be able to pay under the current arrangement.

The funding gap gets so big, Congress would have had to deposit $80 trillion in an interest-bearing account last year to meet Medicare's eventual obligations. The $700 billion Congress spent to bail out the financial institutions wouldn't cover 1 percent of the amount needed to bail out Medicare.

It's hard to fathom how anyone would suggest that a government that has run a program like Medicare should increase its role in health care. Democrats like to tax, but Medicare's mess shows they cannot tax enough to pay for their grandiose medical care plans.

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More think Obama should wait on health care

President Obama told the nation last week that health care reform is one of the top three priorities of his administration, but 49% of U.S. voters say the president should wait until the economy improves before moving forward on the health care front.

Forty-two percent (42%) believe Obama should go ahead with health care reform now, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Ten percent (10%) are not sure what Obama should do.

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image toon - mny hcare - OB re health care at deficit's edge

Obama may use 50-vote tactic on energy, healthcare

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President Obama’s budget director said the White House would consider using a Senate procedural tactic so that only 50 votes would be required to pass major healthcare and energy policy bills.

Peter Orszag, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the administration would prefer not to use the budget 'reconciliation' process to push through its package.

"We have to keep everything on the table. We want to get these.... important things done this year."

Still, using budget reconciliation to pass policy proposals is controversial, even among some Democrats who believe doing so is contrary [I.e., breaks] Senate rules...

[Translation: 'We'll follow the rules if we get what we want - otherwise the ends justify the means, democracy is overrated.']

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The Durbin Amendment – The New ‘Fairness’ Doctrine with a Kicker

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Thursday by a whopping 87-11 vote, the Senate added as a rider to the passed DC voting rights bill the Broadcaster Freedom Act (BFA). The BFA, if also passed by the House and signed by the President, would kill once and for all the Censorship Doctrine -- also mis-known as the "Fairness" Doctrine.

Much Conservative celebration ensued. However, the revelry is misplaced and premature. It means only that the Left means to destroy Conservative and Christian talk radio by other means.

Because another rider was added via a party-line 57-41 vote. Written by Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, S.160's Purpose is

"To encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership, and to ensure that the public airwaves are used in the public interest."

Hello, new "Fairness" Doctrine - the regulatory enforcement of "diversity" of radio station ownership, and localism as defined by the "public interest." Liberal censors are now travelling alternative routes to reach their original destination - silencing political speech on the airwaves...

[Recall; radio bandwidth isn't public; it's purchased with the intent of making a profit. There's over 1400 stations in this country - you can find anything you want to hear {for now}. Recommended > ]

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image toon - lbrty bbro crpt - Dems stripping talk radio of free speech

WH Secret Phone Conferences Bear Fruit With TV Media's Limbaugh Attack

Back on January 29, we discussed the daily strategy phone call engineered by Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel for friendly TV commentators and "reporters." Politico reported that Emanuel has a daily phone conference call with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, and CNN's James Carville and Paul Begala. With Rush Limbaugh's raucous CPAC address, as he termed it his "first address to the nation," we can see at least one example of what is likely an attack strategy resulting from the Emanuel phone session with a rush to bash Rush the day after the appearance. [Image credit: politico.com]

As soon as the sun rose on the day after Limbaugh's CPAC appearance, three of the four of the phone call participants attacked Limbaugh with the same talking points. It seems obvious that they coordinated their attack together in the Obama secret strategy session. It is amazing that a president's staff can have such power over major media figures without a peep being heard from those that only months ago bashed former presidents over a perceived undue, even "dangerous," control of the media.

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CNN: Republicans 'Literally Look Like Nazi Germany'

CNN host D.L. Hughley turned to the standard left-wing tactic of playing the Nazi card against Republicans on his program on Saturday evening:

“The tenets of the Republican Party are amazing and they seem warm and welcome. But when I watch it be applied -- like you didn’t have to go much further than the Republican National Convention....It literally look[s] like Nazi Germany.”

He went on to say that blacks weren’t welcome in the party:

“It just does not seem -- like not only are we not welcome -- not only are we not welcome, but they don’t even care what we think.” He later described the GOP as “reactionary.”

The stand-up comedian-turned-TV host made the remark during a segment with Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele [pictured at right].

Steele did not verbally react to Hughley’s Nazi characterization.

[...explaining to the black party chairman how blacks aren't part of his party...]

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Report: Radio Legend Paul Harvey Dies

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The calm, intelligent voice of dignity off to tell the angels the rest of the story. Good day, Mr. Harvey, you will be greatly remembered and missed.

Let it Snow...

I fully realize that anecdotal evidence has nothing to do with the current debate on the existence (or not) of man made global warming … but this is just too rich. From Bloomberg news:

March 1 -- The largest snowstorm of the season is on it way to New York City and the surrounding metropolitan area, with as much as a record-setting 14 inches expected to fall tonight and into tomorrow’s rush hour, said Gary Conte , a National Weather Service meteorologist in Upton, New York.

“The record for March is 10 inches, set in 1896. Obviously, based on our forecast, that is in jeopardy. ”

This storm comes on the heels of Obama’s plan to tax all carbon energy sources.

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image photo - fnn - Plumber truck

The Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear

It seems that if despotism came to be established in the democratic nations of our day, it would have other characteristics: it would be more extensive and milder, and it would degrade men without tormenting them. ..  .  .

When I think of the small passions of men of our day, the softness of their mores, the extent of their enlightenment, the purity of their religion, the mildness of their morality, their laborious and steady habits, the restraint that almost all preserve in vice as in virtue, I do not fear that in their chiefs they will find tyrants, but rather schoolmasters. .  .  .

I want to imagine with what new features despotism could be produced in the world: I see an innumerable crowd of like and equal men who revolve on themselves without repose, procuring the small and vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls. ..  .  .

Above these an immense tutelary power is elevated, which alone takes charge of assuring their enjoyments and watching over their fate. It is absolute, detailed, regular, far-seeing, and mild. It would resemble paternal power if, like that, it had for its object to prepare men for manhood; but on the contrary, it seeks only to keep them fixed irrevocably in childhood; it likes citizens to enjoy themselves provided that they think only of enjoying themselves. It willingly works for their happiness; but it wants to be the unique agent and sole arbiter of that; it provides for their security, foresees and secures their needs, facilitates their pleasures, conducts their principal affairs, directs their industry, regulates their estates, divides their inheritances; can it not take away from them entirely the trouble of thinking and the pain of living?

So it is that every day it renders the employment of free will less useful and more rare; it confines the action of the will in a smaller space and little by little steals the very use of it from each citizen. ..  .  .

Thus, after taking each individual by turns in its powerful hands and kneading him as it likes, the sovereign extends its arms over society as a whole; it covers its surface with a network of small, complicated, painstaking, uniform rules through which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls cannot clear a way to surpass the crowd; it does not break wills but it softens them, bends them, and directs them; it rarely forces one to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one's acting; it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, compromises, enervates, extinguishes, dazes, and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals of which government is the shepherd. ..  .  .

I have always believed that this sort of regulated, mild, and peaceful servitude, whose picture I have just painted, could be combined better than one imagines with some of the external forms of freedom, and that it would not be impossible for it to be established in the very shadow of the sovereignty of the people.

--Alexis de Tocqueville
From Democracy in America, volume two, part four, chapter six: "What Kind of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear"

SOURCE